


Autumn Crimes

by Beatrice_Sank



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Autumn, Bisexual Female Character, Canon Compliant, Dialogue Heavy, Friendship, Growing Up Together, Mae has a job, Mental Health Issues (but I tried to keep it light), Multi, Possum Springs' Nature, Post-Canon, Relationship Discussions, Seasonal Spirit, Supernatural if you blink or maybe not, Swearing, Terrible Costumes, Trick or Treating, also the obligatory Goose reference, healing together, in some way an ode to Tumblr culture, vaguely political themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-02 13:10:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Sank/pseuds/Beatrice_Sank
Summary: Post-canon, set a year after the game's events. It's Halloween again, well, Halmostween, Gregg is visiting from Bright Harbor and planning for some seasonal crimes, while Mae reflects on what has changed, and what remains. A trick or treat adventure (spiced with a weirdly political twist, blame Bea) takes them all around Possum Springs, as relationships are discussed, the concept of growing up is questioned, and felonies are committed. It's time to look back, to begin to look forward. And what better way to do that than by dressing up as the scariest thing you know?“We’ve got to send a message, yeah? Let them know we don’t wanna depend on private candy investments. That we want candies fairly distributed to all tricksters, whatever their age. That no one want to be left with the last expired Reese in the bag. That shit gives you allergies.”





	1. Autumn Sprouts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Big_bunbun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_bunbun/gifts).

> Happy Halloween! I hope you enjoy that monster of a treat (or trick? It's really hard to tell).

Diary: October, 29th

_Cloudy sky, light rain. Pumpkins still ridiculously small, like shrunken-head small. Yummy shrunken heads. _

_Gregg’s coming over, okay? Forgot to tell the Landlord-and-Lady. Remind Mom about that Bible stuff and “our door is always open” and “God is my shepherd”. So Gregg is a fox but she wouldn’t want to ruin The Book over a bad meta-thingy, would she? Anyway, he has this sheep tattoo. It totally works. _

_HE’S BRINGING ASTRO MUNCH. _

The spouts were barely there, but if you put your face very close to the ground, for example by laying on your belly, opening only one nightmare eye to survey the compost, not caring if your fur got all moist, you could see them, piercing the earth like little green zombie fingers. It was conveniently seasonal. They were late, though. She told them as much:

“What have you been up to under there, you lazy leafy things? It’s nearly November, in case you haven’t noticed. Don’t you think it’s time to reach for the sky and grow?”

She might be a wreck of a young adult, her face might be speckled with dirt at the moment, but she’d be damned if her crops weren’t watered properly.

The garden had been her mom’s idea, even though she insisted that she was the one to remember about Grandpa’s square-foot of yellow grass, right behind the old rails with the other allotments. At the time it had seemed like a better place to be left alone than her parents’ attic, and admittedly she still mostly came to sit on a bag of loam and stare in the distance, but the plot was coming off nicely enough too. She had her hopes high on those tomatoes, come next summer. And if they weren’t eatable yet, they would go fabulously with Mr. Penderson’s new car’s color. Something to look forward to.

It was a bit weird to have Gregg over at this time of year. Not that they had fallen apart: he visited occasionally, even if their late-night jobs mostly kept him and Angus in Bright Harbor.

Bea was around more often, almost every weekend, to check on her father, the shop, her mother’s grave, and possibly on any chance of a town upheaval. Right, she checked on Mae too. At some point after what Gregg insisted to call their ‘crazy spelunky adventure’, she had decided that life was too short to keep selling obsolescent hard drives to unemployed middle-aged men and had enrolled in the closest community college. It still meant working part-time there, but by some small miracle the moment she had looked for someone to replace her at the Ol’ Pickaxe had coincided with Kev’s arrival into town. Kev was, according to Bea, the most reliable being you could find south of Syracuse, and according to Mae the human equivalent of plain yogurt, with his beige shirts and his awful bright smile. Kev also turned out to be Pastor K’s boyfriend, which Mae found disturbing and Bea sort of cute, though she would never admit it in so many words. The guy willingly got himself a ticket into Possum Springs while she was buying her own way out, and hell if she wasn’t going to be grateful. Even if she didn’t go as far as setting foot into church – joke had its limits. There was always some sort of anger boiling under Bea’s skull, but in the weeks that followed their mishap, she had gotten progressively livid. Over the level of bullshit that could get into desperate people’s heads. Over the state of the town. Over the indifference. After her first week of college, she had announced, fuming, that she was going to knock it so far out of the park they would have no choice but to offer her a grant and a transfer to a better place at the end of her two years.

“And if they fuck this up, well, arson’s still a thing, I’ve been told.”

She liked it when Bea was more angry at the world than she was at her.

The earth under her chest was beginning to dry, thick rays of light coming through the clouds like on those really cheesy religious paintings Germ’s grandma kept in her room. The old trees looming over her parcel creaked and a gush of wind sent a dead leaf right in her face. Well, thanks a bunch, nature. Feeling really supported down here.

Not that she was supporting herself either – not really. But. To be fair, she had a job now. Half a job, a fraction of a job, nothing that would fill the gaping hole of her college debt, or the gaping hole in her parents’ roof (an image and quite a literal thing too, literal enough to bitchily drip on her muzzle in the early morning anyway). Eff the dew and the million books of poetry that went with it. Selmers would agree, and Selmers probably didn’t wake up at 5 a.m. wet in the face, or if she did it was for other reasons entirely.

Mr. Chazokov had found it for her. From what she understood, he had basically built his own soapbox out of cardboard and possum poo, dragged it all the way to a shabby office in City Hall, climbed on it and sung her praises at a bored clerk until the guy gave up and signed a paper to get rid of the weird old grandpa who said he knew the mayor’s deputy.

She wasn’t sure why he had done it. He had his own troubles alright, and anyway she kept leaving dirty footprints on his roof and greasy fingerprints on his telescope lenses.

“I told them you had a vision,” he had explained. “In this country you have to sell yourself. It’s bad, but it’s how it is. And you, you wouldn’t give two dollars for yourself at the back of a garage, girl. I’m old, I know the way. I’ve learn the speeches they wanted for my immigration papers. So you leave it to me. It’s only part-time, anyway. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Or if it does, you will be the first to know, beh heh heh!”

He had smiled contentedly and put his hands on his belly, as she made a face.

A vision. A vision for lawns. And flowerbeds too, fine, but damned, a vision, she would try to ignore the idea.

So. Apparently she was an assistant gardener, now. City Hall payed for a grand total of one and a half employees to take care of communal green areas, which wasn’t so much of an issue since Possum Springs offered little parks and virtually no recreation, as far as she was concerned. She was the half employee. The other, fuller part of the team was Bob, her not-exactly supervisor.

Bob was sort of old. And heck, Bob was quiet. During her first week he barely said anything apart from “’llo”, “come on” and “bye”. Obviously she went haywire pretty soon after he failed to answer her 12th question of the day, and he watched patiently as she embarked upon a nervous rant about how she was wondering if she had died without noticing and was now back as her own ghost, invisible and impossible to hear. Then he said: “Kid. It’s fine. Calm down,” and took her to fix the holes on Jenny’s Field.

Bob didn’t seem to care if she was late, or sloppy, or if she killed a million plants, which was a common occurrence in the first months. She was astonished not to lose the job, but it also made her feel terrible. And mid-spring, when she burst into tears over a bed of dead marigolds, he patted her on the shoulder and told her about the wonders of compost. College had taught her that she wasn’t exactly stellar at listening to long instructions anyway, so she mimicked his gestures, skimmed over the plastic memos with plants’ pictures and names, and poked anything that caught her eye with her highly professional hoe, like a true gardening badass. She continued to talk to Bob, even if he rarely answered. He brought her apple juice for their breaks though – homemade, she had to guess, because as far as she was concerned Bob lived in the trees.

“Gee, I would be terrified, if I were you,” Bea had said. “This guy sounds like a creep.”

But she wasn’t. She was beginning to think that Bob was cool, in his own Bob way.

And it was the thing, really. She didn’t cry anymore. She also killed less and less plants, but that wasn’t the point. The point was there was always something coming back from it, something she could poke with her hoe like an explorer reaching shore. Each day was different. Rain, light, even the wind made a difference to a patch of turnips.

But the happiest person about it certainly was Germ. He would come over every odd day and point at all the plants she was pruning or repotting, asking “what’s that one? And what’s that one? And that one?” until she snapped and threw dirt at him. Kid really needed to lay off on biology stuff. 

She considered rolling on her back, and decided against it. She might crush some sprouts, and there was no point dirtying the other face of her t-shirt. The autumnal sun was beginning to warm her. Finally, some goddamn peace and quiet.

_Crack._

“Yihaaaaaaa!!!”

_Humpf._

Something huge had just fallen on her back from a nearby tree. Something furry. Something that smelt of bad cologne and worse intentions.

“Gnihiihihi, eat dirt, dirt person!”

“Hghghaargh… Fucking hell, Gregg! Get off me!”

She was feeling like she had just turned flat from an encounter with a bulldozer, but Gregg seemed infinitely pleased with himself, and proceeded to yell at her face.

“Hello Margaret! It’s me, Greggory! Your ninja friend with his kick-ass stealthy ninja skills! Wish you’d seen it, it was stylish.”

She spewed some of the earth that had indeed gotten into her mouth and half-heartedly searched for injuries.

“I swear, Gregg. You probably broke my butt or something.”

“Then you can wear a cute butt cast and I’ll drive you around in a little cart. That’d be fun.”

As much as she would have liked to guilt trip him, she found she was mostly fine, if a bit sore.

“How did you know I was here?”

“You Mom told me. Was a bit surprised to learn I was staying over, too. Don’t worry, I was charming as hell.”

Patting his own jacket in satisfaction, he peeked at the patch of sprouts over her shoulder and asked:

“Are those your babies? You’re not secretly growing weed, are you?”

“Don’t be daft. Those are spinach.”

“Spinach? Yuk. Seriously? That’s sailors’ food!” he accused, as if sailors were suddenly some sort of secrete police. “Good thing I brought those Astro Munch. It has pumpkin spice and all. Got to get some real food into you. Come on, stop crawling, dude. My boss thinks I’m half dead with the flu, and I’m gonna enjoy every second of it.”

He turned to look at the sun, striking a dramatic pose as she grudgingly got up, muttering that her joints were all disjointed now:

“No crimes like autumn crimes. And they don’t wait.”


	2. Public Haunting

“So, what do you want to do?”

Once at her home, they had taken a nap, and though her back still hurt she was grateful for it. Gregg was the only friend with whom she still got to do these things, no question asked. Just say “I’d kill for a nap” and there you were, two sacks of useless fur top to tail on her mattress, and it felt right and not a tiny bit weird. She missed that intimacy. It used to be simple when people were younger and you could just sleep together platonically, no problem, just like pre-school because it was agreed that you needed to take a break from your day at some point in the afternoon. Afternoons were different, then. Smoother. She wasn’t great at talking to people, didn’t always know how to discuss her issues with her friends, but hell, if it weren’t so creepy she would organize the biggest sleep party ever, dozens of twenty-something converging in a pile of tired limbs, soft parts and terrible problems. She was often tired, people always were. Here was their solution.

“I don’t know, man, it’s been so long, I can’t believe it. You’ve even got rid of that Witchdagger poster. You had this for years! I loved that poster. Felt like it was part of my heritage or something.”

“Your heritage? Like I’m your great-aunt Mae, age 95, and you can’t wait til I’m dead so you can grab it?”

Gregg waved his arms on the mattress in frustration.

“Noo, more like...more like...I don’t know, a tiny piece of you that would always stick there because I helped you put it up. Like an official memory or something: ‘Remember Mae’s room at her parents’ home, yeah sure, there was that Witchdagger poster on’. And now it’s gone.”

“Gotta love the new one, though. Sharkle is awesome. He’s like, a little digital hero.”

“Sure. But. It’s not the same.”

“It’s not like I’m dead or anything.”

“OooOrr MaYbE YoU AaaREe,” he howled, poking her in the ribs until she smacked his head.

“Ow, dude. Just trying to get you into the spirit.”

“Of what? It’s not Halloween yet.”

“Who says it’s not? Halloween, Schmhalloween. It’s Halmostween! And on Halmostween, what do we do?”

She would try and be creative, but Gregg really was quite predictable sometimes.

“...Crimes?”

A shrilling buzzer sound resonated in her ear. Gosh, she hated when he did that.

“Wrongo! On Halmostween, we subvert traditions by being unpredictable and fabulous. We innovate. We dig out the true seasonal spirit.”

“And what do you mean by that, oh you master of Halmostween?”

“Don’t know, I’m still figuring it out. Wait. It’s expected that we’d go trick or treating in two days, at night, knocking at the door of good Possum Springs’ citizens, right?”

“Not us, we’re way too old for that.”

Gregg sat up on the bed, clearly getting excited.

“Exactly! So that’s what we gonna do. The town won’t know what hit it. Picture it. Trick or treating. Now. In the afternoon. In our best costumes.”

“Normal people are working, Gregg. Anyway no one will give us candies or anything. Even the drink deals at Miller’s don’t start before tomorrow, and I fear to think about what happened last time you drank Orange Fanta-stic Beer. Brr. Their mix are really awful.”

This gave him pause, but she knew it wasn’t going to stop him for long.

“Hhmmmm… Hey, you know what Bea always says?”

“‘Make sure you think this through, because I’m too broke to bail you out of jail’?”

To be fair, there was a lot of Bea’s sayings that had become regular enough to serve as jokes. They possibly didn’t muse on them as much as they should have.

“No, not that one. She always says in this town it’s like we forgot we are supposed to have public services. Like it’s becoming a legend or something. They’re falling apart and people don’t dare using them.”

She paused for a second. Thinking too hard about politics always conjured the weirdly sweet scent of Bea’s electronic cigarette.

“Yeah, she does say that.”

“Well, what about a bit of public haunting? Angus is always rambling about Halloween being ruined by people slamming their doors in your face because they think asking for candies is a ruse to break into their house. Now on Halmostween, we don’t want that. What we want is public candies. See what our good institutions will give us, and trick them if we don’t like what we see. Tell them we want our candies back.”

“That’s really bad politics, Gregg.”

“Okay, maybe not that last part then. But. We’ve got to send a message, yeah? Let them know we don’t wanna depend on private candy investments. That we want candies fairly distributed to all tricksters, whatever their age. That no one want to be left with the last expired Reese in the bag. That shit gives you allergies.”

It was a surprising speech in that mouth, she had to say. The old Gregg never used to dive into that topic further than the usual A in a circle and eff the cops graffiti. She didn’t know what to make of it.

“I’m sorry to ask, but have you been reading stuff?”

“Nah, it’s Angus. Bea’s always calling him, and he’s so smart he absorbs all that college stuff through cellphone waves, I swear. And I’m, you know. Weak. Anyway, it will be fun. What do you say?”

As much as she was up for crimes, she also didn’t want to lose her job.

“I don’t know, I wanted to maybe show you what Bob and I had been up to for Halloween?”

Gregg jumped on his feet and bowed to her ridiculously.

“Mae Borowski, you lead the way. You are a public service yourself, now.”

Ha. That wasn’t wrong, although the town certainly wouldn’t collapse if she failed to wake up on a week day. It hadn’t so far. Or maybe she had to reconsider the reasons of the crumbling economy. She stroke her imaginary beard.

“I guess I _am_ becoming the mayor of Possum Spring.”

“So, Madam Mayor,” Gregg said in a terrible attempt at formal speech, “what services doth your towne offers?”

“Pffftt. Erm. Lemme think. There’s the library, for sure. Last free place and all. We’re not going to City Hall, that’s a big nope. But I guess the church might count? They let people use the rooms for the AA meetings and the local market.”

“Hmm. God’s House. Yeah. Let’s go where the real money is!”

She had to stare at him: she vaguely knew how much her mom made on her job at the church, and Pastor K sure wasn’t a flashy TV preacher collecting millions.

“There’s half a chance they gave all the candies to the poor already, you know.”

Which left none for dysfunctional young adults in need of refined sugar.

“I’m still stealing stuff from our supermarket, so.”

“Yeah. Well maybe don’t tell them that when we knock. What else? It’s Halmostween, so the cemetery seems like a mandatory stop? It’s a public service, right?”

Gregg craned his head.

“Dunno, I think Bea had trouble with her mother’s grave being expensive. But yeah. I suppose everyone gets a hole.”

They stayed silent for a second, probably unable to decide if it was a nice thought or a depressing one.

“So what you’re saying, Mayor, is that people in here read, pray and then die?”

“More or less? Sounds like a good summary. Anyway, what’s your costume?”

*

“Prepare to be spooked to the end of your wet skeleton.”

She was feeling more in the mood, now that she had her costume on. It was a pain to move, but the excellence of it was compensation enough.

“Get out of there and show it already!” Gregg yelled impatiently.

“Okay, close your eyes. I found it in the dump pile when I was out in the tunnels. I saw it and I thought: ‘This. This is the scariest thing I know.’”

She stepped out of the bathroom after checking Gregg wasn’t cheating.

“Ta-da!”

“… Aaaahhhh Oh, my. Gosh, Mae, is that…?”

It was Charity Bearity. Or more accurately, a cardboard costume of Charity Bearity, with a small hole for her face and articulated limbs she had tied with string to her own non-charitable body. She raised her arms experimentally.

“Have Your Eaten Your Greens, Young Man?”

“Bwah, stop it, stop it, the wound is still bleeding with that one. 1st Grade. Ms. Applegate. Don’t ask.”

“Alright,” she said, walking along the corridor a bit stiffly. “Your turn.”

*

“Just like you, I’m going as the scariest thing I know.”

She eyed him from head to toe one more time.

“...”

“What?”

“A goose? Isn’t that like, massively offensive?”

“It’s not any goose, you dummy! It’s _The_ goose. From the _Goose Bumps_ movie? They wear a welder helmet, and their cry can kill you. In your sleep! Didn’t Angus recommended that one? It’s a million years old but they show it every Saturday night at that theater he works at. People dress up and bring rattles and bags of fake feathers to throw at the screen, that sort of things?”

“Nope. Never heard of it.”

Not that it seemed so much of a shame: Gregg essentially looked like a big white sock. With swimming googles. And a horn.

“Gee, Mae! Eff all the hard work. You should come over more often.”

It was easier said than done. Neither of them drove, and no one in their right mind would have lend them their car. The Bright Harbor-Possum Springs bus liaison had been taken down four years before due to budget cuts. And she was the one who was stuck there, with no transportation and bad reception. There were even poems about it.

“Yeah. Can you walk in that thing?”

“I can bounce!”

“Even better. Come on, let’s see the beds, before it starts raining again.”


	3. Apocalypse Garden

For an autumn, it was warm, warmer than it should have been. The woods were so orange these days it almost seemed the leaves had been spray-painted. She had wondered a couple times if it was the same as with sunsets: the more deadly gases in the air, the brighter the colors.

They were both bouncing through the woods like a fluffy catastrophe, the dried leaves exploding under their feet, chestnuts rolling like flipper balls in every direction. No doubt they were terrifying the wildlife, or what was left of it, but it felt nice to take Gregg to places she used to roam alone, because in the innocuous woods that surrounded the town’s welcome sign she could forget herself. No more sturdy, round shape. No more mayor of Possum Springs. Only trees. Only what grew under rocks, that no eye could see.

_Monstrous existence_. She often thought about it. Maybe nature would be all that was left after the last job disappeared. Nature, lead pipes, rust and conspiracy theories. People got out of town. They rarely came back. Bea said the black goat bullshit was the last jolt of a dying social body. She wasn’t sure she understood. She never tried to explain what had happened to her, under the earth, in those tunnels. Bea always had words, she didn’t. She suspected it was different for every one of them, a suspicion that had only grown stronger when no one had been reported missing in the months that followed. People only left. The question of what was dying remained.

“Dude, look at me! I’m the horrible flying goose,” came as a cry over her head. From the upper branches of an oak, Gregg was waving a white furry arm at her. He ran as he could along it, jumped for the next tree before she could say anything, and promptly crashed on the ground when he missed it.

“Oh my… Gregg! Are you okay dude?”

“M’fine. This goose is invincible. Also, so much stuffing. It’s like those sumo suits they had at the mall when we were in high school, remember?”

She did. In fact those costumes had been her private metaphor for the times she wasn’t feeling completely in her body.

“Okay, stop fooling around, we’re almost there. Eyes closed! It’s like, a royal privilege you get as a returning resident. No one can see this before harfest.”

She guided him to the patch, right behind the town’s sign, and carefully removed the tarp, trying not to knock down the two scarecrows she had made herself, from junk collected in the trolley tunnels. Her stupid heart was beating a little faster, when it wasn’t that big a deal at all. Just some stupid flowers.

“Open up, captain!”

Before them stood, in all its glory, one big possum. It was a composition of orange and violet flowers, carefully arranged so that the possum appeared to be wearing a pointy hat (sculpted bushes) and holding a pumpkin filled with multicolored candies (pansies). Underneath, written in pebbles, you could read “Happy Halloween in Possum Springs”.

Gregg blinked.

“Mae...”

“Yeah, I know, possums are not exactly sexy, but...”

“No, no, Mae, this is incredible! Like, you’re an artist! You and that weird silent guy! Man, how come the old flower thingy were nowhere near as cool as this one?”

Her heart was now dancing a little gig. If Gregg liked it, it meant it was something, something substantial.

“Well, I sort of designed it? Bob was going for the usual autumn stuff, dead leaves and all. I said it was boring. He didn’t argue. He usually doesn’t. Maybe he hated it, but hey, I’ll probably never know, so I thought, what the heck: this should be fun. Wasn’t so big on my “PS: FU” idea for the text, though. He’s the wisest.”

“Aaw, too bad. But still, it’s grand like this. Reminds me of the things you used to doodle during classes. It’s very you.”

Somewhere behind the possum’s bushy nose, something suddenly moved.

“Ohmygod what is that, Mae is that a rat? It’s huge! I fricking hate rats!”

It wasn’t a rat. Actually, it looked more like…

“Rabies!”

“What, are we gonna catch that too?”

“No, you moron, it’s Rabies! Oh I would know you anywhere. Look at the old rascal. He found the Big Possum and now he’s living there, under the eyes of his new god. Waiting for his afterlife candies.”

After she formally introduced the possum to Gregg, he bowed elaborately. Rabies, on the other hand, didn’t seemed that much impressed.

“Shalom!”

“Wha… no, not Rabbi, Rabies!”

Gregg only shrugged.

“Isn’t he the raddest rat.”

“God Gregg, you really know shit about nature, don’t you?”

“You’re the expert. Look at you, pal with all the locals.”

“I’d better be. What with the planet getting hot as hell, and the water dripping from every corner. When it all goes south and all the ice is melt, this guy is your model. He knows how to navigate it. He’s a survivor.”

Rabies twitched his nose, blinked, and turned his back on them, disappearing in the woods.

“See?” she said. “Come on, help me put the tarp back, or else Bob’s gonna kill me.”

They were on their way to the church, the first designated stop in their public haunting tour, when Gregg asked in a voice that was carefully nonchalant:

“Do you think about it often? The end of the world? Or, I mean, the end of Possum Springs?”

She was tempted to lie, for a second. But the fact was, her opinion on the matter had somewhat evolved in the last year, or developed in a way that made it easier to express.

“Yeah. But, it’s not like that. Don’t worry.”

Gregg bounced with more enthusiasm than necessary.

“Oh I’m chill. I’m super chill. Chillax as wax.”

She stayed silent for a while, trying not to trip on her costume.

“I mean, suppose it all goes terribly, like apocalypse level of terrible. We still could do like Bob, and live in the trees. No one will need those supermarket jobs anyway. Those things won’t matter so much. We could, I don’t know, relax, grow our own food, and sure it will be disgusting, but you won’t have to worry about it killing you one way or another. And no one will care if you stay in your tree and don’t go all ‘hello world, it’s me, Mae Borowski, and I’m going to conquer your ass!’. If it’s a nice tree, great, no need to bother, just build your little shed and enjoy, it’s probably worse in some places, some states don’t even have trees. No obligation to do things by the rules when everything has already collapsed. I find it, you know, liberating. Doesn’t mean I’m going to throw all my junk in the sea just to speed the process. But it’s got you thinking. About how there’s some things you’re not obliged to do. You can just keep kicking, and climb that tree already.”

A low whistle was heard, and Gregg slowed down to come back at her level.

“When have you become so wise, tree person?”

She made a face.

“I’ve stopped eating donuts. Those really hurt your brain, you know?”

“Nooooo! I refuse to listen to this!”

As he ran ahead again, she thought about Rabies, visiting her Halloween flower beds. It would only last until the beginning of winter, and the possums would probably eat the roots first. Chaos had a place in this. Destruction could lead to something else. Behind the trees, she could already make out the silhouette of the church. Inside those walls, she knew, there was a room, not big, not too clean, where she could nap.


	4. Stop 1: Take Me To Church

“Shouldn’t we knock? Isn’t it standard procedure?”

“It’s a church, Gregg. What are you gonna say, ‘Open up, we know you’re there’?”

“‘_There is no sw__eeter innocence than our gentle sin’_? It totally works. It’s ‘trick or treat’ translated into church people language. I can sing it for hours until they crack and let us in.”

Stepping into a holy place with Gregg when he was in such a mood  certainly was a risky move .  But  after their interlude in the woods  she was beginning  to feel motivated too.

“Shouldn’t we just go in and ransack the place, like Vikings? I’m sure they have old jars of sweets hidden in the back. My mom would, at least, and I’m sure Pastor K would, too. She’s saint and all but she’s not above candies.”

“Ooh, do you think I can climb there and find an open window? And then I’ll let you in and…”

Suddenly, the red oak door moved forward, and they had to jump back, while someone’s head appeared  through the opening.

“Get in here or scram, but make up your mind. This threshold is still a bit shaky, and your chitchat is getting on my nerves.”

She opened her mouth, but Gregg beat her to it, luckily. She couldn’t remember the last time she had an encounter like this. Was it at Longest Night? Not that she’ d actively look ed for him, but he  would disappear  for months, and then one morning he was right behind your front door, vaguely  raking things.

“Hiya good sir, we’re here for a surprise inspection. We, the people, want candies from this institution. Or, you know. Money would be agreeable too.”

The janitor looked down at him with mild skepticism,  and asked, undisturbed:

“Is that a hold-up? Because it’s maintenance day, everybody’s home and I need to finish my own inspection. So if you kids could just make yourself scarce...”

Gregg shot her a Look, then winked in the most obvious way imaginable before saying reverently:

“Oh, in that case don’t mind us at all. We’re just going to… have a little pray. Walk around, smell that holy spirit, as you do.”

Before she could react, he was already waddling his way in, and she had to follow. There was a loud whisper that sounded like “See who can find the Holy Jar first!” and then he was off in the corridor.  She counted to ten and turned around. 

“Hey. Hem. It’s you again.”

T he janitor picked up his hammer and stared at her blankly.

“You can never be too sure.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“I could have a twin brother. Or an army of guys who look like me. Are you sure you’re able to see past the uniform?”

When she stood frozen at the suggestion, he cracked a smile.

“Ehehe, you should see your face. Anyway, doing better these days, aren’t you? Little changes, little growth, some sort of twisted moral, yada yada yada?”

Would someone please tell her what the eff was going on presently? One minute she was bouncing in the trees, thinking about post-apocalyptic Possum Springs, the next she was being scrutinized by a nonchalant bearded man holding his hammer upside down.

“Well I, em, I guess I got a job...”

“Oh that. Yeah, that too. No, I mean you’re a bear now. Patronizing bear if you ask me.”

He pointed out at her costume, which she had managed to forget about like the  scatterbrain she was. 

“Oh. Oh yeah. Aha. Wh...”

“Anyway, you should go, I think your friend is gonna break something. Say hi to your mom.”

“...Right. Okay. How do you...”

He was already closing the door behind him.

Perfect. Perfectly normal and not creepy at all. Her mom? What was he on about?

In the distance, a loud “clonk!” was heard.

“Maeee?”

Gregg was rummaging in one of the  store rooms. His costume was already getting slightly gray from all the dust he ha d been moving around.

“I’ve broken something!” he declared, stretching his arms for her to see the disaster for herself.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to miss a century old statuette of Saint Rubello. Unless Pastor K is stocking it here because she likes to perform secret rituals in cupboards at night.”

Gregg seemed to consider the suggestion seriously. And, as usual when he gave things serious thoughts, he began to panic.

“Oh my God, do you think it’s a sign? Am I cursed now?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“There’s an old tarot lady living in our new building, she says I have “the eye on me” every time she comes to complain we’re being too noisy. Do you think the spirit of this thing will come and haunt me? Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised, Angus and I once had these leaflets in our mail, about how God hated us and we needed to “convert” to normality and something about “life style” or I don’t know what…”

“Dude! Dude. Calm down. It’s fine. Who gives a damn about a lame clay thing? It’s just old church decoration, they don’t use those figurines anymore. Breathe. Maybe not in here, you’re gonna give yourself asthma.”

His eyes were closed now, and he was shaking his head.

“Okay. Okay. But signs are real, Mae. You know this. And I keep breaking things.”

“I honestly don’t. How can you say that after last year? You were searching the room, looking for candies, a statue thingy fell, end of story. It’s crimes, dude. It’s part of the process.”

Gregg seemed to be coming down from his sudden burst of agitation, but he was now quiet, which she didn’t like a bit.

“What’s going on here man?”

He sighed, then let himself glide down to the floor against a pile of old blankets.

“Nothing. Or just the usual, I guess. I thought, when we moved out of town, everything was going to be bright and better. But I just… as it turned out, some of the bad I thought we were leaving here just comes from me.”

“Gregg. You just rule, okay? There’s nothing bad about you.”

“I do, but there is. It’s normal, I think. Sometimes I get that sudden fear that I’m massively screwing up but it’s all hidden, I’m not even noticing it because of how screwed up I already am. It never lasts, it’s only glimpses. I was considering stealing from those bags, and then I had a thought and it was ‘What are you doing?’”

He gestured in the general direction of a pile of hiking bags that seemed full to the brim with something she couldn’t quite see from where she was standing.

“Then I tripped and broke that thing. And all I could think then was ‘Oh. Angus is gonna leave me.’”

“Oh, dude...”

“Which I know is nuts. But there it was, come from nowhere.”

She sat down on the dusty floor next to him, and awkwardly tried to pat him on the back.

“Are things alright between the two of you then? Has something happened?”

Gregg looked ahead at the light that was coming in the room from a small window.

“Well. We’re thinking about getting married.”

“WHAT!”

It was lucky she was already on the floor, otherwise she probably would have fallen down dramatically. Oh yes, she would have made a point of it, to mark the occasion.  Gregg and Angus, married? 

“Yeah. We know we’re young and all, but we’re tired of not being seen. It would be making a statement, like hey we exist, eff you tarot lady. And I just love him so much. I know it’s not going to change. I want people to know that.”

S he couldn’t stop blinking. Too much dust, probably. 

“Wow, man, this is huge. Adulting the adult stuff big time. I don’t know what to say.”

Good news as she supposed it was, it was hard to process this piece of information. She was glad, in a way, happy for them. But it also  violently highlighted her impression of being left behind.  People moved on. And out. Went to college. Got married. They…

“But Angus says I have to work on my fear of abandonment first. He’s afraid it would only act as a band-aid for my insecurities, because it won’t change what he feels for me and he doesn’t want me to trust our legal status more than I trust him, or myself. So. I need to get better and keep my bullshit in check, is what it means.”

They stayed silent for a moment, listening to the muffled hammer knocks that came from the other end of the corridor. Eventually, she asked:

“When have you become so wise, adult person?”

Gregg chuckled.

“Bwaha. Good one. I’ve stopped, errr, I can’t think of anything. Stuff happens. It’s just time I guess. Our life’s been different since we moved out. I’m just the Gregg of the situation.”

She refrained from pointing out it would make a cool t-shirt, and forced herself not to avoid the topic.

“That’s good. That’s a good you.”

It was her turn to sigh.

“I’m sorry, I feel like everyone’s always checking on me, and I just forget you have your own thing going. But I want to be there too, you know? I want to be able to take it. Bea’s here every week end and I don’t want to become one more load...”

“Dude, I’m stopping you right there. It’s not like that. Bea’s your friend, she does it because she cares. And you are there. You’re there now, aren’t you? I can make out your nightmare eyes blinking at me in the dark. Anyway, it doesn’t work like this. It’s more like a chain.”

“A chain?”

He turned to her with an earnest look, like he was stating the obvious.

“Yeah, a chain. I take care of Angus, and he takes care of Bea and all the little scouts from his troop, and Bea takes care of you. That’s how it works.”

“That’s eff up, man,” she said, shaking her head. “Because who takes care of you then?”

“Well, you. I mean, not that I want you to hold my hand or anything. You’re my friend. We do what friends do. Crimes and stuff. It helps me, I think. Also, you know. There’s always Angus’s ass.”

“Ewww, nope, that’s the end of this conversation.”

As she got up and began to brush the dust from her clothes, she was reminded of the hiking bags Gregg had found.

“What’s in those anyway?”

“Oh, yes, that’s the oddest thing. They’re full of granola bars and cans of soups and chips and jerky. Do you think the pastor is planning to flee the country?”

She examined the old blankets on which they had been sitting.

“No, I know what those are. I think K is keeping it around since that time last year, when the whole Bruce debacle happened. You remember him? He was like, a drifter. He was nice. But they made him go away. And she was so upset, so that makes sense, making stocks in case other people in need of food pass by. I think my mom mentioned it at some point.”

“Right, so I suppose we have to write in our reports that it’s a good public service, don’t we?” Gregg asked, comparing different brands of jerky in the light.

“It’s mostly K. She really tries. And as Bea always says, ‘Thank God for Kevin’. Oh, that reminds me, I have to check my mom’s desk too. If anyone is likely to keep candies around, it’s her. Meet me in the hall in five minutes?”

Her mother kept so many trinkets on her desk it was hard to properly search it. The janitor was nowhere to be seen, and the carpet muffled her step but she still felt like she was trespassing, even if stealing candies from your own mom wasn’t at the top of the crimes list. It wasn’t so much in the spirit of Halmostween either, but Gregg’s concept had been shaky from the start.

As she tried to open a drawer that looked promising, something else caught her eye. It was a small drawing, the felt pen colors largely faded but you could recognize basic, round flowers and rather squared bushes among trees that just looked like angry broomsticks. The shapes were pretty bad, but it was a garden, thriving under a sun that wore little sunglasses, making it look extremely chilled. In the center stood a figure that was almost as tall as the trees, with a big butterfly perched on its head. It had pointy ears and huge eyes that were colored in purple and orange. And it was wearing a puffy pink dress.

“Erk, no, the princess dress. The humiliation.”

Underneath you could read, in stick letters: “ME, MAE, iN My SECRet GarDeN”. There was a date, written by an adult hand. From the way the drawing was taped, it was clear that her mom could see it when she worked, even though it wasn’t visible from the other side of the desk.

She was still staring at it when Gregg came back from the storage room, holding a granola bar like a trophy.

“I’ve decided this is our treat. No need to trick the Church this year, besides there was that minor statue incident, so… Found anything?”

“...No,” she said in an unsteady voice. “Nothing we can eat. Hey wait,” she pointed out, regaining her senses, “our treat is stolen from the poor loot?”

“Yeah but that’s why I only took one! So we can share and think about those who have less than we do, and all that. Besides, I’m starving and there was like a hundred pounds of food in there. I may have eaten a bag of chips, too.”

What could she say anyway, since he was already tearing up the paper?

“Fine. But you’re the one going to hell. Make sure my half isn’t the smallest one.”

“That’s cheap. Where’s your charity, Bearity?”

“Oh, shut up.”


	5. Stop 2: Grave Matters

“How do you go trick or treating in a cemetery, though? Knock on the graves and pray for our souls that no one’s home?”

The sun was setting already on Possum Spring’s old cemetery, the sky turning a shade of pink that made her long for the candies they still had to collect. Chances to get their hands on actual sugar looked slim from there, that is to say from the bottom of a hill covered in tombstones.

“That would be so cool, you’ve got to admit. But I’m sure this place is filled with grieving people who would be thrilled to feed the starving youth. It’s a favor we make them. Taking their mind off sad stuff and all. Watching our innocent eyes light up as we feast on their sweets.”

She took a good look around. The hill was entirely deserted. They were alone among the tombs and the occasional goth tags.

“Right.”

That was to be expected. In fact, the town was not the only place to consistently lose residents over the last few years. In the cemetery, graves continued to sink. It mostly concerned, as Bea always pointed out, the cheapest plots, those that were downhill. Two months before, a coffin had been sucked in from a fresh tomb that hadn’t been filled already.

“It was all over the local news, I called you specifically, don’t you remember? Big hole, and so, so deep you couldn’t make out anything even in plain daylight. So many people came to see this. You would believe we have the best attractions.”

“Oh yeah, tots. Can we see it?”

“Nope, they filled it as soon as they could, before some dumb teen fell down and became king of the Underworld.”

She remembered, more precisely, getting into an almost-fight with her Aunt Mall-Cop, who was guarding the hole when she tried to peek and had to make some very detailed threats to keep her from leaning over the muddy edge.

“You know what, that’s a perfect opening for a horror story. Dumb teen falling into a bottomless grave, reaching the Underworld, getting pissed at how rad it is and converting it into a white-lenses Goth realm where every soul has to wear black lipstick.”

“Brrr. Stop it. I can’t take this level of spookiness. Anyway, they say that when the coffin disappeared, there was that huge noise, like a giant trying to suck in the last drops of his ice latte. The biggest slurp you’ve ever heard.”

Gregg stepped on a tombstone and put his hand on his heart, or at least against the stuffing of his costume, and solemnly declared:

“_And so in life we drink, until we are ourselves drunk_. Gee, that turned out better than I expected.”

And then he took out his horn and pressed it:

“HONK!”

“Very solemn. Hey, can we go and check on Bea’s mom? I’ve always meant to visit but I’m, like, never around.”

As they walked down the path, the image of the missing coffin stayed in her mind indistinctly. She could imagine a long fall and then, a subterranean river, floating in the dark, turns and turns and the sounds of the wet earth. The thing was, she knew now that no bottomless pit was really bottomless. She had managed to throw a rock above Aunt Molly’s shoulder, that day, and the dressing down that had followed had almost covered the liquid noise that came after a few seconds, but not quite. Wood traveled over water. Maybe it got washed up in a secret cove, or just floated all the way to the ocean. One way or another, something had to give. Dead marigolds and compost. She was less afraid of ghosts these days, and more so of discrete undercurrents, dripping and dripping until your head and your heart were flooded. At one point around the time the coffin disappeared, Bea had said to her, sounding surprised: “You’ve changed.”

“Come and check that grave, dude. It’s the sweetest thing you’ll ever see!”

Gregg was hunched over a headstone that read ‘_Anthony __and Maria Calloway, 1904-2000. United by love, in life and in death_.’

“Does it mean they were born the same year and died at the exact same time? Gee. That’s...something.”

The stone was engraved with two hearts that overlapped to meet in the middle. In terms of cheesiness, it beat even Kev’s best smiles. Gregg, on the other hand, seemed enthralled.

“Just imagine. Possum Springs’ summer heatwave of 2000. It’s 110 degrees outside. Tony can’t take it anymore, his old bones are too tired, too dry. He closes his eyes. And then, seeing this, Maria thinks ‘Not without you’, and bam! she’s dead too. The entire old people’s home cries over it for weeks, and they all end up even more dehydrated. Aah, that’s how I want to go. That’s romance.”

“I thought you wanted to die in the explosion of a rooftop nightclub, and when they find your body it’d be covered in small pieces of mirror ball, and someone would write on the wall ‘this guy saved us all with his moves’? We had that talk for our last high school Halloween.”

“I’m sure I can manage to do both. Angus would want that. One day we’ll have our own kick-ass grave and people will visit and marvel at how cute we were. I’ll make sure to use a picture where you can see his eyes.”

She had find a stick, while he was busy dreaming about his own death, and had begun poking the moss absentmindedly. Poke, poke. While old, retired Gregg and Angus was an hilarious thing to picture, she couldn’t help but wonder where she would be. Probably dead by a long-shot. Although she did eat more greens these days. She thought of Bea’s electronic cigarette, and took a sudden breath:

“I don’t… Honestly I don’t find it that sweet at all. More like, creepy as hell, if you ask me. Like, they were married what, probably 60, 70 years? And they couldn’t even have their own personal death? That’s not love, man. That’s just… weird codependency.”

Gregg eyed her with what looked like curiosity, before pressing his horn by surprise.

“HONK.”

She almost poked herself in the eye from the magnitude of her jump. Gregg stepped down the grave and resumed walking without another word, which was always suspicious. After a few moments, she heard, in a tone of voice that was a bit too high to her liking:

“Sooo. Maeowski Borowski. Mayorowski. Mayor Ski. I’ve beeen meaning to ask. What’s up with you and Bea?”

Damned. No no no. She could never lie to Gregg. She could never lie to anyone convincingly, and that was her number one effing problem there. Maybe if she hit him, he would forget about it. But, she thought, his pocket knife. She only had a stick and some cardboard limbs to carry. He had her cornered.

“...em.”

“Aaaaaah!”

Gregg began to dance around like a madman.

“I knew it! Oh my heart, after all this time, I’m gonna cry, it’s too much, gee, Mae, way to go girl! I’m so proud, like, I feel you’re my little gay toddler, just learning to walk all by yourself, turning you little blind eyes to the sun and seeing the Truth!”

He was going to blow his horn in celebration, she could effing tell, so she grabbed him and managed an emergency arm lock before her nerves gave in.

“Dude, please, don’t. Like, really.”

There was no point lecturing him, but he always responded well to wrestling. The horn was dropped to the ground as a peace offering.

“Alright, alright,” he said, raising his hands in submission. “Don’t get all worked up. I was just being curious, you know, and it’s not exactly a secret that you’re acting different around her. I mean I saw you listen to her rants and dude, no offense but there’s no way you could get that much into socialist theory without an ulterior motive.”

She realized that she did take some sort of offense. True, she often got distracted on speeches that included too many European sounding names and words like ‘proletariat’. But that didn’t mean she was incapable of having an opinion over serious issues. Like unions. Bea and her dad had gotten into long conversations over this whenever she visited, and after a while you were bound to catch bits and pieces. Or pest control. She had very strong opinions about pest control. She had a feeling that Bob found it funny as hell, even if he never mocked her directly for it, but she didn’t care. Rats had as much of a right to enjoy Possum Springs as every other citizen, if not more. They could eat her plants, she didn’t mind. It was life.

“Look Gregg, I don’t want to be mean or anything, but you know shit about this._ I_ don’t know shit about it, and I’m me!”

Honestly, what was it about holding hands (and sweaty hands at that) that got people in such a state? She wasn’t making a big deal of it. Well. There had been smooches too. In Bea’s basement, of all places. Then occasionally. But Bea hadn’t got time to weight herself down with questions when she was working so hard already. “I’m just tired,” she had said. “Let’s not mess up things. I mean we did a bit, but. I can be cool about this, if you can. If you tell me exactly what’s on your mind, too. Please don’t panic. I know how you can be.” And she did panic, but it was a rather quiet sort of panic, a soft fear that crept under her skin and left her feel more present that she had been in the past year. Panic that ran through her body and sometimes threatened to overflow when she put her head on Bea’s shoulder and let it rest there. She felt like she could cry, then.

“You’re not together-together, then? Do we have a ‘it’s complicated’ situation here? Oh my God, were you drunk? Or like, high on pizza?”

She took a desperate look around, and only saw graves, ranks and ranks of graves, and the odd bare tree.

“Do we have to discuss this here?”

“Relax,” Gregg told her, waving at the nearest tomb. “They won’t tell on you. Although, Bea’s mom might.”

“Shut up! That’s awful!”

“Why? You liked her mom. Anyway I don’t think she will come to haunt your house, asking for a definite label. Which would make a rad movie, by the way. I should pitch it to Angus: he bought himself a camera with his first pay check. Picture that big white ghost coming into houses at night, floating around beds and asking: ‘Art...thou...dating...mine...daughter...maiden? Thou...shall...tell….Art...thou...playing...for...the...other...teame?”

She punched him into his stuffing, which at least got him to notice how upset she was growing. He sighed, then gently tapped two fingers on her forehead, smiling.

“Dude, it’s fine. I’m sorry, I’m being an ass. We don’t have to get into the gory details, it’s just… It’s been nagging me, I just want to make sure nothing bad’s happening.”

She bit her lip, before smiling back uncertainly.

“Nothing’s bad happening. I just, I don’t want to make a Thing out of this, okay? Name it or anything. Could be nothing. It’s not like we’re going to take it further for now.”

Gregg nodded repeatedly like he was suddenly the guardian of all the knowledge in the universe.

“...But… I also feel it’s part of us, like it’s been forever and… I don’t know, it’s just… nice. It’s nice.”

She liked nice. Nice was easy. It was almost like she could manage it all by herself, which was an unusual sensation. Strangely that blurry, undefined situation made her feel like she had a say in how she dealt with it, a choice.

“Awww. I’m so glad. Try not to panic. I know it’s hard. I panic all the time. But you’ll get better at it, and then you’ll know. Come on now. Let’s visit that grave already.”

It was a simple flagstone with Clara Santello’s name and her dates, nothing fancy, and she realized she was seeing it for the first time. Bea had always taken some time alone when she accompanied her, and she had never dared intrude.

“Can I say one last thing, though? And then I swear I’ll shut up forever if you don’t want to speak more about it.”

When she gave no reaction, he continued.

“I feel like I will know the moment you’re in love like officially, because there’s no way nothing will blow up in town at the news. I’ll come back here and find the place reduced to a forest fire with you on top of the supermarket, dancing in circle among the flames and shaking your little paws to the sky, going all ‘Gniihihi, look at my heart eyes’ before the whole thing collapses in a puff of smoke.”

She had to admit, she was half-sold on the picture it draw.

“That’s...a nice thought, I guess?”

“Well it’s the best crime. The crime to inflate your tiny screaming heart with love gas. Wish I could tell Angus. There’s no limit to the volumes he can cry over a good love story.”

After that speech, they were left staring at the tombstone in silence. No flowers there. For some reason, Bea never brought any. That suddenly made her sad.

“You know what, let’s reorganize that cemetery a bit. I don’t see why Clara couldn’t have nice flowers for herself. She always has people visiting. It would be the polite thing to do.”

“I hear you. I’m gonna find some crazy rich dead persons we can steal ornaments from. This place is doing a really poor job of treating its users equally.”

In no time they had snatched a cute enamel roses posy from a very old concession, along real carnations from recently deceased people who wouldn’t miss them since they were already covered in vases.

“Aren’t you going to say a few words,” Gregg asked as she finished arranging the flowers on the grave.

“…do you think I should?”

“I dunno, it’s the done thing. Saying hi and all. Plus, I would think about that haunting scenario twice, if I were you.”

Resigned, she turned to face the stone, and tried to come up with something acceptable.

“Bea’s mom, hello. Em. You were very cool. I’m sorry you’re dead, it wasn’t really fair. It was probably something they put in the food, or in the air, because you were not that old. We thought it would be nice for you to have a bit more decoration. And. Your daughter kicks ass. So. Thank you for that, I guess.”

She quickly moved away before the embarrassment became too much.

“Dude, I feel like an idiot. Is there a point, talking to dead people? Let’s go. I refuse to stand here any longer.”

But before they could reach the slope to the cemetery’s entrance, they heard a voice behind them.

“Oh, aren’t you lovely? Two little animals, that’s adorable, let me look at you.”

A very old lady in an absurdly frilly dress was waving at them from another grave.

“Hullo ma’am,” Gregg tried, probably a bit disturbed to be called out like a seven years old. “Em, trick or treat?” he added hopefully.

“Just wait for a moment, I’m sure I have something in there,” she began rummaging an old-fashioned carpet bag. “You look like you deserve it, such sweet costumes. Aren’t you a bit early though? Well I suppose I am too, in a sense.”

She gestured at the chrysanthemums she had just dropped at the grave.

“But if you wait for the 2nd of November it just gets so crowded you can’t hear yourself mourn...there they are! Here, you can take them home, they won’t hurt your teeth.”

Mae stared a bit incredulously at the metal box of “Pepper’s Peppermints” she was being handed.

“...Thank you. That’s, em, very generous.”

“Such a polite young lady! It warms my heart to see young people like you coming here. Paying our respects is important. My Ernest knew that too.”

“What did he die of,” she asked out of curiosity, since the old lady was rather sweet even if she smelt a bit like mothballs.

“Oh he was a miner, and there was an earthquake. You know that sort of things can happen when you dig too deep into the ground… But that was a long time ago. Hopefully you won’t need to go through such events. Those were very dangerous jobs. And the little kids… Anyway, the tunnels have seen many things. Keep your head out of the ground, you’ll be safe.”

Unexpectedly, she patted Gregg on the head, and gather her skirts.

“I should really go now. But it’s been a pleasure talking to you, children. Do watch your step.”

As she disappeared behind the hill, Mae gave another look at the peppermints. The box looked incredibly old, and rusty in places, the writing almost gone.

“Gregg.”

“I loved her, she looked like a million years old Mary Poppins, didn’t she?”

“Gregg.”

“Yeah?”

She looked up worriedly.

“When was the last time we had an earthquake in here?”

“Hmmm, I dunno? Long, long time, right?”

“It’s been… didn’t we research this at some point? Wasn’t it like, beginning of last century? Or even before that?”

Silence.

“How old was that lady, do you think?”

“...80? Maybe?”

They looked at each other. After a moment, Gregg shrugged.

“She didn’t say it was in Possum Springs. Don’t worry about it. At least we’ve got treats! Pass that box, I’m still frustrated at how small my half of that bar was.”


	6. Stop 3: Silence in the Library

The sun was setting, the library was far away, and they were standing alone in the dark, a bear and a goose at their wits’ and candies’ end, and above all without a ride.

“HONK!”

Gregg’s idea of pressing his horn at every car that passed by in the hope of getting them to stop was proving both ineffective and quite a nuisance to the traffic. However, it was great fun to watch. After a false alarm when Smelters fans honked back, believing they were some absurdist mascots cheering for the night’s game, they finally heard tires screeching in their vicinity. A window lowered slowly, and Selmer’s stunned face appeared in the night.

“Holy crap. Are you for real?”

Her eyes kept going from Mae, whose cardboard arms had been stuck in an upward position for the last hour, to Gregg, who had momentarily put his swimming googles back on his forehead to survey the road, revealing massive round marks around his eyes. She blinked again.

“I feel like I’m tripping hard on, well, I have to say ginger beer, because that’s all I had. Damn. I mean, catching sight of you walking side by side on the street like it’s nothing special is really an experience.”

“Hullo Selmers,” Mae waved and her second pair of arms fell back into place. “Wanna help two special agents on an undercover mission? We need to go to the library.”

“Whe… whatever. Of course you do, Charity. Get in, you’re really in luck, I was headed for my poetry meeting. Anyway it’s my moral obligation to give you a ride when you enhance reality like that. Ha. Just give me a minute, I think I need to recover,” she said, wiping her eyes.

It was rare to see Selmers so gleeful, and as she climbed in the back seat of her rotten car, Mae decided that there was something to be said for ridicule. She let her catch up with Gregg, and watched the street lights and bright store fronts go by faster and faster.

Many businesses had closed in the last few months, and as they passed the old bookstore, a hint of loneliness hit her unexpectedly. She remembered buying wildlife magazines and fantasy novels with Bea when they were in 3rd Grade. The bookseller, Ms. Goldberg, always let them read in a corner. At some point toward the end of junior high, she had to close the shop and move out to a college town where people could actually afford to pay good money for books, and the store had become a coffee shop, then an arcade venue for quite a while, and in quick succession a plus-size clothes shop, a laundromat, a pawn shop. After that she left for college and lost track of it. It seemed that it was presently selling electronic cigarettes.  
She could still hear the voices under the earth, lamenting the loss of values, of traditions, the dissolution of everything. They were missing the point. A good number of traditions could just burn in a fire, as far as she was concerned. What was important, what often lacked, was the basis for common memories, shared space. No junior highschooler could remember the bookstore now, remember walking by with indifference or stealing money from their mother’s purse to buy comics during lunch break. No one knew or cared that it had once been there. No one could describe Ms. Goldberg’s round face and her burgundy turtlenecks. A common place was hard to find.

But as she walked into the library, Selmers instructing them to meet her in the hall in an hour, it suddenly struck her how little things had changed there. Sure, the paint was peeling from the walls in some spots, the posters that stated the loan rules had yellowed. But she remembered everything. The scents, the patterns of the carpeting, the disposition of the shelves, and how she used to sit on the floor in the children area with her grandad to read stories. It was all there, waiting for her. When she had visited with Bea, they had a specific goal that had prevented her from thinking too much about it, but now she was taking notice, and it felt… comfortable. It felt like home.

“So what’s our plan, Captain oh my Captainowski? Do we like, grill the librarians about their secret stash of sugar and threaten to ring the fire alarm if they try to lie to us, as librarians do? Those people always have a package of cookies around, don’t they? It’s like, a professional trick to get children to learn their letters. Supper bitter that I fell for that. If I didn’t know how to read, I wouldn’t have to pretend I didn’t notice the ‘No trespassing’ signs.”

“Ssshhh!”

An artfully loud-but-no-too-loud whisper pierced the room, its origin unidentified.

“Look who doesn’t know about the ‘th’ rule. Speak about intellectuals.”

“Hhmm, I don’t know man, librarians are _terrifying_. Not sure if I want to aggravate them. This is a place of knowledge, so the question is: how do you feel about a bit of brain finesse, Mr. Lee?”

But before he had a chance to answer, the most sinister, most chilling cry a young voice could produce resonated across the hall.

“Look! It’s Charity Bearity!”

Mae froze in horror. Not ten yards from where they stood, a group of young children was sitting among illustrated books, felt pens in hand, and one of them was staring, his finger pointed in their direction, belting for his life to spread the good news. They could only watch the catastrophe happen in slow motion, as one by one the small demons turned their head, eyes widening in wonder, before they jumped to their feet and ran toward them.

“Abort mission, abort mission!” Gregg furiously whispered stepping back and retreating inside his stuffing as much as he could.

But she knew there was no escape. They were trapped like rats. She had brought this upon her own head, with her stupid fear of moralizing tales, and she would face it like a true Borowski or die trying.

“What are you doing here, Charity Bearity,” asked someone in the vicinity of her belly. Leaning a bit to see past the cardboard, she discovered a girl of maybe 6 with pigtails and a freckled face. “Are you on a holiday?”

Now was the time to bless her knack for the performing arts. 

“Em, hi. Well... I wouldn’t say holiday exactly. More like, an adventure. Yeah, I’m on an adventure.”

She was rewarded for her choice of words when seven pair of eyes suddenly lighted up, and an even younger girl stopped sucking on her thumb to ask:

“Oh, were you bored in your books?”

Which, in her opinion, denoted a singularly lucid view of the _Charity Bearity_ series.

“Guilty as charged. I mean you’ve got to admit they’re not exactly the wildest ride.”

The little critic nodded enthusiastically.

“Uh-huh. I cry when mom tries to read them to me.”

“Exactly. It’s nice to see I found enlightened minds. I’m telling you, I’m so glad I got away. But,” and then she lowered her voice, going for a bit of drama, “don’t tell on me. I am now… a fugitive!”

A collective intake of breath, followed by a few impressed “noooo!”

“Are you a criminal, Charity? My teacher says you’re always so nice, and that we should be more like you.”

Giving a bit of a backbone to Charity Bearity was one thing, but her instinct told her she should draw the line at downright making him a dark antihero, at least if she was the tiniest bit attached to her soul.

“Don’t worry, I am an honest bear. It’s just that people generally prefer you to go, as they say, by the book. And so they’re all ‘stay in the book, Charity, don’t slip, you’ve got to set a good example, chin up, do your homework, pay your taxes, yada yada’. And that’s all good and well, but some rules are just plain stupid, you know?”

Her audience nodded as if it was a truth universally acknowledged.

“Yeah, like ‘Tommy, don’t put your fingers in your nose. Or steal your sister’s dolls’,” a boy in overalls helpfully offered.

He took another look at her, and experimentally added:

“Yada yada.”

“That’s right, Tommy here has it all figured out: it’s your own nose, after all, you should decide what to do with its content. And dolls can be pretty rad. When I was a bit older than you, I organized my dolls to be a witch coven. They performed little satanic rituals and I made them little brooms out of twigs, and there was...”

Gregg nervously elbowed her in the ribs to signal the approach of actual adults. She stopped mid-sentence and desperately backpedaled before anyone called the cops on the madwoman who haunted libraries to corrupt the youth.

“...and the moral of this story is that they all shared their twigs and took turns to fly, no bickering or anything! It goes to show a real community only exist through a set of common practices that are perpetually negotiated, children!”

Dammit. That last part was straight out of Bea’s sociology class, she was almost sure. However, though the children looked slightly confused by her change of tone, she only got friendly smiles out of their parents, as someone exclaimed:

“It is such a good idea to have educational animations for the children, I didn’t know they did that here!”

Gregg was quicker to respond:

“It’s, em, it’s a Halloween themed activity, ma’am. Children’s heroes and their values. Very interactive.”

“Well, I think that’s just so on point. We need that now more than ever, don’t we? Anyway, we count on you, Charity,” a bearded man winked at Mae in knowingly. “I’m sure you can recommend good books and encourage those little rascals to behave.”

She resisted the impulse to roll her eyes.

“Yeah, well, uh. Eat your greens, kids. Greens are good. I mean,” she hurriedly added, realizing she was seriously beginning to lose the younger part of her audience, “they might seem, or smell, like they’re disgusting, but that’s so wrong greens have like, a secret superpower.”

She'd have to thank Bob for all his plastic memos. The small crowd reluctantly managed to look surprised , unwilling as they were to look too cooperative now that they knew this was supposed to be educational.

“That's right. Greens are superballs of light. More or less.”

Heavy skepticism now dripped from the children’s faces.

“No, no, it's true! That's why they're green. It’s like, when you’re at the beach, chilling in your best swimsuit, building cool forts and moats in the sand, and if you stand there too long you'll turn red and it'll hurts like hell. Greens don’t turn red, because they absorb the light. So basically, eating greens is like having sunlight for lunch. Think about it. I'm not saying Saint Rubello breathed fire because he ate too much broccoli, buuut you kind of never know.”

From the corner of her eye she could see that Gregg was looking at her as if her head had fallen off. The kids, while still mildly suspicious, were nowgiving the impression to be at least prepare to try a bit of salad and see if anything interesting happened. Their parents, on the other hand, looked positively thrilled, and after thanking her for her enthusiasm, began to walk away, satisfied that their progeny was in good hands.

As she went back to her Charity Bearity's character development (he was in a band with Peter Rabbit and the Girl from Jupiter), a minuscule boy who couldn’t be older than 4 or 5 approached Gregg with a very legitimate question.

“Are you a sock, sir?”

The idea that Gregg could potentially be seemed to thoroughly impress him.

“No, son. No no no. I’m something far, far better than that.”

“Oh?”

“I’m a goose. The most frightening goose that ever was.”

The little boy took a few moments to think about the assertion and, deeming it acceptable if a bit disappointing, nodded his ascent.

“Okay.”

She watched the conversation that followed with utter fascination, while the pigtails girl draw “a nice bracelet” on her cardboard arm. There was something intrinsically hilarious in hearing Gregg calling someone “son”, even if the person in question still remembered the time he wore diapers.

“Who’s your friend, Charity,” another kid asked her.

“Oh, it’s...Gregoose. The Bad Goose.”

“Is he a criminal too? Did he set fire to someone with vegetables?”

“Well...”

Gregg intervened.

“Lemme explain, kiddos. Sometimes, I do crimes. But only the fun kind. Highly recommended. Now, setting someone on fire is not very fun, not like, I dunno, opening a fire hydrant and run into the jet to see if you can get off the ground. That’s a fun crime for you.”

Gregoose was going to be a smashing hit in the young children literature section, if he kept going on like that. She could swear one of the kid was taking notes on his own arm.

Gregg’s new friend pull on his sleeve.

“What can you do, Mister Goose?”

“You mean, do I have powers or stuff?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well,” Gregg paused dramatically. “I have that horn.”

He held it high for all the children to see.

“Can I try it,” the minuscule boy asked.

“Sure, son. Go crazy.”

In retrospect, she should have tried to intervene. But it was just too good a crime.

Ten minutes and a lot of “HONK” later, they were expelled from the library with an official warning and a firm telling-off. Admittedly, she had never seen a librarian so confused in her life, which was sort of a small victory in itself. All their young admirers waved at them enthusiastically from behind the window, as they sat on the low wall in front of the building to wait for Selmers. They waved back, and Gregg had to mime pressing his horn, since it had just been confiscated for an indefinite period of time. The kids cheered.

“Look at them. Little pirates. We’re their king and queen now, you know?”

She hummed quietly. They still had a quarter of an hour to kill, and she was already getting cold. Looking up, she saw that the stars were becoming visible in the sky. It would be a good night for Mr. Chazokov.

After a few minutes of mentally linking the brightest ones in her head, she asked:

“This one was trick, right?”

“Gee, I really don’t know.”

“I mean we didn’t even had the time to mention candies.”

“Don’t think it would have worked anyway. You were right, those librarians are savage.”

They fell silent again, until she shivered and Gregg offered her fistfuls of his stuffing to put inside her clothes. Looking down at her even rounder, upgraded body, she finally said:

“Gregg.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for today.”

“Well, our candy score doesn’t look too good. Hopefully we’ll do better on the actual Halloween, when the others join up. Just wait until you see Angus’s costume. I can’t say anything but it’s _dashing_. And I think Germ might just go dressed up as you. He kept talking about it.”

Now that was an original way to ruin the moment.

“What??”

“Yeah, I don’t know either. I think he look up to you. The whole gardening thing really impressed him.”

That was a strange idea, being who she was, to be a model to anyone. But after all, she had spent her evening waxing poetic about cabbages, so maybe it was fair, who knew.

“But yeah, today was fun. I don’t know. Like we used to do but, different.”

Not that it was possible, she believed, to spell out the difference exactly. She pressed her palms against the stuffing in her shirt. When they were younger, crimes didn’t have an expiration date. But they knew that in three days, Gregg would be gone, back to Bright Harbor with Angus. Bea would go back to college. Germ would returned to whatever mysterious things Germ did.

“Gregg?”

“Hum?”

“It was the best crime.”  
  


When Selmers finally arrived from her meeting, she needed a full ten minutes to catch her breath after hearing the story of their evening.

*

_Growth_,

by Selma Ann Forester

Shop windows, empty like an open wound

“Everything must go!!!”

Turn right on main street

And keep it

Keep it

“Keep your right up, son”

For you never know.

A car, a car, another car,

Running through my body, wasted energy,

As I pray

For a painless pill.

The sand town stands still

And there’s only silence,

Silence

“Silence in the library”.

HONK!

Suddenly against the night

HONK! HONK!

It’s a bird, on the plane tar, it’s a bear

And they share

A singularity.

HONK!

It’s the sound

Of empires that fall and of nails in your tires

You’re tired

They stare.

Here’s to the good people

Who never give a damn

As they let the moss grow

In the cracks of the street.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

There

Right there

A goose and a bear.

Stuffed with pamphlets and candy wrappers.

And it’s almost

Almost

Like there were more of you

Just more

Than there was before.

*

As it turned out, Selmers kept a huge stock of Halloween candies in her car.

**Author's Note:**

> Admittedly, it was a wild ride. I just want to point out that English is very much a learned language for me, so weirdness in syntax and tone is sometimes hard to avoid. This was especially challenging since I'm really not familiar with American slang, but I tried to mimic whatever I could from the game. I hope it doesn't get in the way of reading, but if it does please don't hesitate to point it out to me.


End file.
